A print shop is a business that prints things for customers. For example, a print shop may print a small catalog or a book for a customer. In many cases, the printed item may include color images. The print shop may offer a variety of options that affect the quality of the color images, in terms of the type of printer, the type of media, and pricing.
Before selecting one or more options, an employee of the print shop may present the customer with a number of printed samples so that the customer can evaluate the various options. If the print shop utilizes modern equipment, the samples may have good color quality and consistent color appearance (CCA) across these samples. The exact colors of the samples may be different, however, due to color gamut differences among the samples.
A color gamut is the range of colors that can be physically produced in a particular environment for a particular medium. By way of example, the color gamut of a production inkjet printer is dependent on two factors: (i) the ink-media interaction and (ii) the image processing and color management of the printing pipeline. In one scenario, the same printer, using the same printing pipeline, can produce samples having two different color gamuts when printing on two different media. Similarly, two different printers, printing samples on the same media, could have different color management policies, resulting in two different color gamuts.